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[Putnam]

But it could, couldn't it? I mean, why not? The one single cruiser plowed through a super-dreadnought and a bunch of Star Destroyers...and killed them all. A single Y-Wing should be more than enough to disable a Death Star superlaser.

But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.

[Kot]

But it could, couldn't it? I mean, why not? The one single cruiser plowed through a super-dreadnought and a bunch of Star Destroyers...and killed them all. A single Y-Wing should be more than enough to disable a Death Star superlaser.

But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.

Then just use a bigger ship.
It's not a matter of wether that's cost effective, because consider HOW MANY FUCKING SHIPS they lost assaulting the Death Star, and how much effort they needed, and that ultimately they only did it because they had Luke's force magic.
Now compare that with just crashing a ship into Death Star. Even if it won't kill it fully, it will probably disable it's weapon and damage it enough so it could be finished off with normal means.

[Madman198237]

But it could, couldn't it? I mean, why not? The one single cruiser plowed through a super-dreadnought and a bunch of Star Destroyers...and killed them all. A single Y-Wing should be more than enough to disable a Death Star superlaser.

But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.

I reiterate: In the (sadly no longer canon) EU, hyperdrives would be affected (i.e., they'd stop working and the ship would suddenly pop back into "realspace") by the mass shadow of a planet, moon, or star (But NOT by the artificial gravity generated by ships). That ship just smashed into the moon with a large explosion (Pulled out of hyperspace by the gravity, perhaps?). Why didn't the cruiser just smash into Snoke's ship like that? A tremendous explosion would've been perfectly functional for destroying the ship and sending the First Order into disarray, possibly even for long enough that they could make it to the ground.

[Egan_BW]

That ship's shield held up to star destroyer fire for quite some time, and was faster, do it probably would have succeeded in just ramming snoke's ship. But that wouldn't have looked as cool.
Justifying star wars physics isn't the job of the movies, and never has been. the fact that people can already provide plausible explanations indicates that we'll probably get such an explanation in EU at some point.

[Dorsidwarf]

I mean it e didn't *destroy* the capital ship, did it? I thought it was just crippled and some of the hangars blew up, but Kylo just flew down the uin-exploded ground forces to kick the rebels.

Or did I reach for popcorn and miss it actually going kablooey

(Also it's interesting that the entire resistance at the end of this film consists of a single small freighters worth. The rest are dead.)

[Egan_BW]

I don't think it actually killed any ships, just did enough damage quickly enough that they had to stop shooting at transports.

[NRDL]

The hyperspace crash wasn't enough to kill any of the First Order ships, they were still able to mobilise and fly down ground troops.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

But it could, couldn't it? I mean, why not? The one single cruiser plowed through a super-dreadnought and a bunch of Star Destroyers...and killed them all. A single Y-Wing should be more than enough to disable a Death Star superlaser.

But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.

Then just use a bigger ship.
It's not a matter of wether that's cost effective, because consider HOW MANY FUCKING SHIPS they lost assaulting the Death Star, and how much effort they needed, and that ultimately they only did it because they had Luke's force magic.
Now compare that with just crashing a ship into Death Star. Even if it won't kill it fully, it will probably disable it's weapon and damage it enough so it could be finished off with normal means.

The Cruiser only got through maybe 7 kilometers of ship, as the Mega Star Destroyer is 60km from wing to wing and the cruiser went through it perpendicular to that along part of the wing rather than through the central mass.  For contrast, the Death Star is 160 kilometers in diameter, meaning that the ship would need to penetrate over ten times that depth to reach the reactor at least, and anything less than blast that could be repaired.

I can admit that the strike did make it all the way through the Mega Star Destroyer so the penetration could potentially be deeper, maybe 10 km at max, so the size of the ship to take down Death Star I would need to be around seven times as long.  That type of stuff isn't just lying around and is extremely unlikely to be in a rebellion's arsenal barring very special circumstances.

[Kot]

I mean it e didn't *destroy* the capital ship, did it? I thought it was just crippled and some of the hangars blew up, but Kylo just flew down the uin-exploded ground forces to kick the rebels.

Or did I reach for popcorn and miss it actually going kablooey

(Also it's interesting that the entire resistance at the end of this film consists of a single small freighters worth. The rest are dead.)

I don't think it actually killed any ships, just did enough damage quickly enough that they had to stop shooting at transports.

The hyperspace crash wasn't enough to kill any of the First Order ships, they were still able to mobilise and fly down ground troops.

It literally cut the fucking Snoke's giant ship in half and also majority of First Order fleet. I cannot believe when people are saying this changes nothing. She just single-handely wrecked the First Order superweapon, what is apparently majority of First Order fleet and all that in one fucking go, while First Order had no fucking way of defending themselves against it. She killed a ship that was three times as wide as Eclipse was long, had millions of crew and a number of Resurgent-class that are twice the size of old ISDs and have over 100,000 people onboard.
It took one person with a single cruiser to do this.

FUCK, why didin't they do it before even? Just load all the people in the 2 smaller ships, turn the big one and literally REMOVE the pursuing fleet from existence.

Justifying star wars physics isn't the job of the movies, and never has been. the fact that people can already provide plausible explanations indicates that we'll probably get such an explanation in EU at some point.

It's not even justifying physics, I do not even want that because the whole concept disregards them, but the "no hyperspace ramming" thing was something impossible to do in Star Wars for a good reason. Just look at the goddamn video and tell me that is something that rewrites entire existing Star Wars combat theory, perhaps even completly obsoletes it. She just traded one decently sized ship for a ship that was bigger than any other existing Star Wars ship in new canon and a whole fleet of goddamn ISDs on steroids. If that is not fair trade, nothing is.
I want you to give me a plausible explanation why that is not a staple maneuver in Star Wars space combat, considering it's power and apparent lack of downsides, especially since the First Order officers clearly realized what Holdo is going to do, so they must have known that this is possible.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Too bad no one shouted, "It's a trap!" before they got suicided.

[NRDL]

I'm really hoping that the next movie's gonna include some throwaway line that justifies not using hyperdrive rams. Just to see how the internet reacts.

[Egan_BW]

I want you to give me a plausible explanation why that is not a staple maneuver in Star Wars space combat, considering its power and apparent lack of downsides, especially since the First Order officers clearly realized what Holdo is going to do, so they must have known that this is possible.

Two I've heard:
One, Hyperspace ramming works only on that ship in particular, because it was using a hyperspace tracker, which is new technology. Their tracker is like a periscope which extends into hyperspace, so when a ship that's in hyperspace hits it it transfers kinetic energy into realspace.
Two, you can only hyperspace jump to particular predetermined spots, and normally every starship commander avoids these spots because ramming is a danger. The first order thought they were winning and were overconfident assholes in general, so they steered onto a jump spot to chase the rebels. This also changes the "oh, shit" reaction from just "she's going to ram us" to "I have made a mistake".

[Madman198237]

I want you to give me a plausible explanation why that is not a staple maneuver in Star Wars space combat, considering its power and apparent lack of downsides, especially since the First Order officers clearly realized what Holdo is going to do, so they must have known that this is possible.

Two I've heard:
One, Hyperspace ramming works only on that ship in particular, because it was using a hyperspace tracker, which is new technology. Their tracker is like a periscope which extends into hyperspace, so when a ship that's in hyperspace hits it it transfers kinetic energy into realspace.
Two, you can only hyperspace jump to particular predetermined spots, and normally every starship commander avoids these spots because ramming is a danger. The first order thought they were winning and were overconfident assholes in general, so they steered onto a jump spot to chase the rebels. This also changes the "oh, shit" reaction from just "she's going to ram us" to "I have made a mistake".

I wish Disney hadn't chopped the EU. It would've made answering those questions easy: One, NO, since the lead destroyer, the one Finn and Co. were planning to sneak onto, as I recall, wasn't Snoke's ship. And two, no, ships just tend to jump in similar directions, because "hyperlanes" are much safer to travel than unmapped and potentially debris-filled self-plotted courses.

[Kot]

Two I've heard:
One, Hyperspace ramming works only on that ship in particular, because it was using a hyperspace tracker, which is new technology. Their tracker is like a periscope which extends into hyperspace, so when a ship that's in hyperspace hits it it transfers kinetic energy into realspace.

I could accept this but then... how did Holdo knew this would work? This technology was completly unknown before, she had no way of knowing how it works, although the First Order might have been aware of this, which explains their reaction before getting rammed, but still.

Two, you can only hyperspace jump to particular predetermined spots, and normally every starship commander avoids these spots because ramming is a danger. The first order thought they were winning and were overconfident assholes in general, so they steered onto a jump spot to chase the rebels. This also changes the "oh, shit" reaction from just "she's going to ram us" to "I have made a mistake".

If that was the case a lot of things would be much simpler in Star Wars, and off of top of my head would make canonical explanation of Kessel Run not work, so if that was the explanation, then it also fucks with rest of ACTUAL canon this time.
Not that it's something they give a fuck about.

[hector13]

Have we considered when a ship actually enters hyperspace? At what point from when the ship starts moving super fast does it actually get there? Is this instantaneous or does it take a bit?